Lutjanus guilcheri Fourmanoir, 1959

Swain, Ritanjali, Kisku, Subash, Nayak, Lakshman, Mishra, Subhrendu Sekhar & Patro, Shesdev, 2022, First record of four snapper fishes (Perciformes: Lutjanidae) from Odisha, East coast of India, Records of the Zoological Survey of India 122 (1), pp. 43-49 : 44

1. Lutjanus guilcheri Fourmanoir, 1959 : Yellowfin red snapper ( Figure 1 )

Material examined: EBEC /ZSI/F-13369, 1 ex., 216 mm SL, Gopalpur fish landing center, coll. R. Swain, 24 th November 2021 .

Diagnosis: D X, 14; A III, 9; P 17; V 1, 5; LL 56; GR 7+14. Body depth 2.67 and HL 2.74 times in SL; eye diameter 4.8 and suborbital depth 4.03 times in HL; preopercular notch and knob poorly developed; vomerine tooth patch diamond shaped; tongue with a patch of granular teeth; caudal fin slightly emarginated; scales above lateral line rise obliquely. Colour: Body reddish-orange and pectoral fins reddish-orange in life.

Distribution: Indian Ocean: known from Madagascar, Sri Lanka, and the Bay of Bengal (Froece & Pauly, 2021). India – Tamil Nadu ( Murugan et al., 2014), Andaman Islands ( Talwar, 1990; Rajan, 2001) and Odisha (present report).

Remarks: This species was doubtfully listed from West Bengal ( Talwar et al., 1992) without any material evidence ( Barman, 2017) and the same was followed by subsequent authors ( Das et al., 2007; Sanyal et al., 2012). This species was also not reported from southern neighboring state Andhra Pradesh. The present work confirms its occurrence from northern part of Bay of Bengal and reports as first record from Odisha coast. It may possible that the species was earlier confused with L. malabaricus or L. erythropterus , while both the species are known to occur along Odisha coast ( Barman, 2017).

Figures

Figure 1. Lutjanus guilcheri (Fourmanoir).